Distribution of the Population 43 



been aform of ptomaine poisoning. Parry mentions this disease at Iglulik in 

 Baffin island.! He says; "The complaints of those that died at their huts, there- 

 fore, did not come under observation. It appears, however, to have been 

 acute inflammation of some of the abdominal viscera, very rapid in its career. 

 In the generality, the disease assumed a more insidious and sub-acute form, 

 under which the patient lingered for awhile, and was then either carried off by 

 a diarrhoea, or slowly recovered by the powers of nature." In one case that I 

 observed the man was attacked very suddenly and died within a few days, 

 while in another the patient lingered for many months. In the first case the 

 victim fell ill early in the winter, when the natives were still eating caribou meat 

 and fat that had been secured during the previous summer and fall ; in the latter 

 the man had been ' quite well during part of the summer at least, but was ill 

 when I saw him in December and hardly able to walk. The exact origin and 

 nature of the disease, however, is uncertain, nor had we any means of ascertain- 

 ing its frequency. With the influx of traders and missionaries into the country 

 the conditions of life are fast changing. Famine looms less in the foreground, 

 but in its place European diseases are threatening the health of the communities 

 and bid fair to rival all other causes in their effect on the death-rate. 



iParry, Vol. 4, p. 75., 



